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Film/Movie Shoots |
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 Hollywood South has moved north to the Northshore and the Northshore Harbor Convention Center has everything you need!
With ample free parking, easy access to the interstates, vast space, affordable hotel options, on-sight full service catering staff and a safe community, we're the perfect location.
With 18,000 free-span space the Harbor Center can become many possible locations; an airplane hanger, a school gymnasium, a retail store such as Sam's Club, a hospital, a mall entrance, an airport lobby, or anything else you can imagine, the sky's the limit!
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| Consider our hotel partners for economical crew accommodations. |
With our great state tax incentives and close proximity to New Orleans, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and Baton Rouge, there is no reason you shouldn't choose The Northshore Harbor Convention Center to film your next production! For more information, click here.
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The St Tammany Parish Tourist Commission offers full-service assistance, from location scouting to accommodation assistance, to local industry contacts and workforce. Contact Loren Legendre, Film Commission Coordinator at Loren@louisiananorthshore.com
For more information, click here.
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Explore more on the Louisiana Film website.
For more information, click here. |
 Perfect for outside festivals. |
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Recent Film News
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Film production trade magazine ranks Louisiana No. 1
The state attracted $550 million worth of film and TV production in 2005.
August 6, 2006
By Alexandyr Kent
The film industry trade magazine P3/Production Update recently ranked Louisiana as the best state to make movies and TV shows outside of California.
In a July article titled "Top 10 Places to Shoot," film producer Michel Shane ("Catch Me If You Can," "I, Robot") said, "Louisiana has gone from nothing to being on everyone's lips."
Alex Schott, executive director of the Governor's Office of Film and TV Development in Louisiana, told The Times that P3's ranking is significant.
"It's extremely important on the national level. Considering what the state has been through, it shows the commitment is still there," he said.
Rankings were based on statistics in 2005, when Louisiana attracted $550 million worth of total production value, according to Schott. In 2004 he said the state attracted $375 million. It is commonly estimated that film production companies spend about one-third of these dollars on costs within the state.
According to P3, California pulled in $34 billion from the film and television industry in 2005.
Schott said Louisiana is continuing to attract the film and TV industry. Numbers for 2006 should remain consistent. "We are actually on pace to meet or exceed the previous levels we were at. It is because of the ability to sustain this industry in other parts of the state."
After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005, many film and TV productions relocated to other parts of the state and the Shreveport-Bossier City area.
The NBC television movie, "The Year Without a Santa Claus," will finish filming in Shreveport this month. "Homeland Security," a movie starring Antonio Banderas and Annette Bening, will begin shooting here in the fall.
"Dallas," an adaptation of the popular TV series, set to star John Travolta, has been rumored but not locally confirmed to be planning shoots in both Shreveport and Dallas later this year.
"Benjamin Buttons," a film starring Brad Pitt, will begin shooting in New Orleans later this year.
© 2004 Jennifer Marusak – “On Track With Marusak” on-line clipping service compilation is subject to United States copyright laws. Any unauthorized reproduction or transfer of this material is strictly prohibited.
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Get a grip in film class
Movie industry training to start
Times Picayune, Thursday, August 04, 2005
By Jaquetta White
Business writer
A day after Gov. Kathleen Blanco announced plans for a $20 million movie studio in Algiers, Mayor Ray Nagin said his office is launching a worker training program that, along with the studio, officials hope, will make the state and city more attractive to movie producers.
"We are capitalizing on the booming business by laying the groundwork for a permanent infrastructure and a trained workforce," Nagin said in a statement Wednesday. The Regional Film Workforce Training program will begin later this month and initially will offer two four-week classes for 30 students focusing on the jobs of grip and electrician. Those jobs pay at least $20 an hour within the film industry, said Ernest Collins, executive director of arts and entertainment in the New Orleans Mayor's Office of Economic Development.
The classes, taught at Louisiana Technical College, will be paid for through the city's Job 1 program. The courses will be taught by industry professionals, and students who complete it will receive a certificate. Collins said the city will be working with film crews to secure jobs for the students.
Additional classes -- including makeup, set design and wardrobe -- will be forthcoming and dictated by the industry's needs. Those will be paid for with a state grant.
Worker training programs were considered one of the elements lacking since Louisiana's film industry took off a few years ago.
New Orleans, along with other cities in the state, has benefited from a state tax incentive program that dramatically increased the number of film productions in the state. The program offers investors a 15 percent tax credit on the cost of productions valued at $8 million or more. Revenue generated by the industry in the state has grown from $3.9 million in 2002 to an expected $377 million in 2005, Blanco said Tuesday.
City Economic Development Director Don Hutchinson said the incentives, training programs and infrastructure are key to keeping the industry here.
Also on Wednesday, Nagin reintroduced the Mayor's National Film Advisory Board, formerly the Hollywood South Board, which will promote the local film industry. Among other things, the board will meet with major studio heads and work with universities to develop training programs. The board is being co-chaired by New Orleans native Harold Sylvester, an actor who has appeared in several movies including "An Officer and a Gentleman" and the television show "Married with Children."
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CREDITS ROLL
State's incentives give tax stories a happy ending
Thursday, August 04, 2005
By Ronette King
Business writer
If a credit line were attached to the cornerstone of the proposed movie studio in Algiers, it might read: "Thanks to the Louisiana movie tax credit program of 2005."
Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu on Tuesday joined developers and other film industry supporters to announce plans to build a movie studio with five stages, office space and a back lot designed to look like the French Quarter.
Developers said the changes in the movie tax credit program passed this year prompted them to bring their project to New Orleans.
"I don't think my deal would have happened without the infrastructure tax credits," said Al Salzer, president of Crescent City Pictures Inc., who is working with Sunset Gower Studios, owner of the former Columbia Studios in Los Angeles, to build the studio. It will be on a parcel of land in the Algiers area owned by the Blaine Kern family of Mardi Gras World fame.
The latest round of incentives, passed about a month ago, could work well for small-budget pictures and television series, and movies in particular, Salzer said.
Under the new rules, developers of an infrastructure project such as a movie studio, once approved by the state Office of Film and Television Development and the Department of Economic Development, can get a 15 percent tax credit on their entire investment. In effect, taxpayers give the developers cash equal to as much as 15 percent of their costs.
For example, if an infrastructure project is estimated to cost $67 million, investors could get a tax credit of 15 percent or about $10 million.
The tax credits allow the studio's builders to reduce or eliminate their state taxes, but if they don't owe any Louisiana tax and can't use the credits, they can sell their credits to individuals or companies in Louisiana that can use them. However, if they sell the credits, they sell at a discount and won't get the full 15 percent.
The state's tax credits for moviemakers, which were passed by the Legislature in 2002, have returned 12 percent to 15 percent to the producers, said Salzer, the New Orleans-based producer. "That's a substantial return," he said.
"The goal is to build an industry and have permanent jobs and have this sustain itself," said George Brower, who has brokered movie tax credits for producers. "We have done nothing if all we did was give out tax credits (only to producers) for a little time and didn't build an infrastructure and an industry."
In addition to the infrastructure project tax credit, the Legislature passed other amendments to the movie industry tax credit program to encourage the industry's development. The changes make it sweeter for film producers working in Louisiana but at the same time link the rewards for keeping as much work as possible in the state. That's critical for capturing some of the behind-the-scenes and post-production jobs that start once the more visible work of filming ends.
The new rules, which take effect Jan. 1, increase the amount of the tax credit for movie producers from 15 percent to 25 percent. But the break is applied only to the amount greater than $300,000 that producers spend in Louisiana . That corrects an earlier shortcoming in which producers got money for work they did out of state.
Moviemakers also can get a tax credit for 10 percent of the payroll for workers who live in Louisiana, which encourages people in the industry to move here and encourages locals to go into the movie business.
The updated tax credit program eliminates the state sales tax exemption for purchases movie producers make in the state.
The Legislature added a tax credit for producers of digital interactive media, such as video games, giving them 10 percent to 20 percent of their investment in tax credits over six years. A music tax credit gives producers a break on movie sound recording done in the state. Investors get a 10 percent to 20 percent tax break for investments of $15,000 to $1 million.
Already the tax incentives have helped establish Louisiana as a viable movie production venue. Last year the state was ranked No. 4 in the amount of money spent on movie production, according to a major industry poll.
"Louisiana has come from out of nowhere to take a top-five finish in terms of the amount of production," said Alex Schott, director of the Louisiana Governor's Office of Film and Television Development. "That's a testament to the incentives and the satisfaction producers are getting here."
Lenny Alsfeld, chief executive of the First Trust subsidiary FBT Investments, which finances movies and brokers the tax credits, said movie producers can use the tax credits as collateral for other loans to put together enough money for a deal.
And they're willing to come here because Louisiana is starting to build a team of strong, reliable film crews that directors can turn to, he said.
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The Times-Picayune
Algiers studio to build film industry's La. roots
Jobs, permanent infrastructure improvements and further growth should result
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
By Ronette King
Business writer
Gov. Kathleen Blanco officially unveiled plans for a $20 million-plus Algiers movie studio on Tuesday, calling it a turning point in the state's effort to establish the permanent infrastructure needed to support its burgeoning film industry.
Sunset-Gower Studios, formerly the studio for Columbia Pictures, will build the facility. It will have five sound stages, office space, digital postproduction facilities and an outdoor set designed to look like the French Quarter.
"We are hoping this infrastructure is the first of many projects, and that movies that once went overseas will come to Louisiana," Blanco said.
Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu agreed, saying that the movie studio will allow the industry to expand here.
"Today Louisiana became the place for the film industry to not just exist, but to flourish," he said after the news conference. "Louisiana has drawn the business, now the question becomes can we handle it."
The Algiers studio already has four proposed sites on land owned by the Kern family, which operates Mardi Gras Productions, and the backing of major studio developers and film industry executives.
The project is being led by Global Innovation Partners, which owns Sunset-Gower Studios and is headed by veteran studio builders Bob Papazian and James Hirsch. They are being joined on the project by producers Jim Green and Mark Bacino and by two Louisiana locals, Albert Salzer of Crescent City Pictures and film executive Charlie French.
Hollywood has been filming in Louisiana ever since movies like "Way Down South" and "Tarzan of the Apes" were shot in the state in 1939 and 1918, respectively, French said.
But a 3-year-old state tax incentive program has stepped up the level of film production taking place in Louisiana. The program, which took effect in July 2002, offers investors a 15 percent tax credit on the cost of productions valued at $8 million or more.
The state's movie industry has grown at a steady clip ever since. In 2002, the industry generated revenues in the state of $3.9 million. This year, spending by the movie industry is expected to reach $377 million, Blanco said.
Still, the state should not limit its film incentives to tax credits, Blanco said. By establishing studios like the one proposed for Algiers, Louisiana will be better able to retain more of the industry's postproduction work, which involves tasks such as editing film and blending sound effects.
The Algiers studio was the second local movie-industry project announced this week. On Monday, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu said Threshold Entertainment of Santa Monica, Calif., wants to build a $100 million-plus digital theme park complete with a soundstage and studio on the New Orleans riverfront.
Landrieu, whose office oversees film and tourism activities in the state, said the two projects unveiled this week will work well together.
"I think it will be very complementary," he said.
Threshold CEO Larry Kasanoff agreed.
"We are building a state-of-
the-art studio and sound stage that is wrapped inside a digital theme park," he said. "It will all be good for us. We congratulate them. If someone builds a theater and I build a restaurant (nearby), it will increase the traffic to my store . . . We want it to be successful."
Landrieu said the digital theme park proposal may encourage the Port of New Orleans and the city to work together on a riverfront project, following a cooling of relations between the two public entities in the past few months on other projects.
"The city of New Orleans has ample opportunity to land this project," he said. "If not, there are others who are interested in this project" in other parts of the state. He didn't say which cities may be alternatives, but at a news conference on Monday, he indicated Baton Rouge could also be its home. New Orleans, however, is the primary location currently under consideration, he said.
Each of the four sites being considered for the Algiers studio is either vacant or occupied by Kern-controlled Mardi Gras float dens and warehouses, said Barry Kern Jr. The Kerns would be willing to relocate their operations to make way for the studio. The sites were chosen because they represent some of the largest parcels of available acreage in New Orleans, Kern said.
Considering the number of industry employees the studio will lure to New Orleans, Kern said eventually the project will necessitate developing residential buildings along Algiers' riverfront. Kern said he is pushing quickly for construction of condominiums, though that idea remains conceptual.
While some residents in the Algiers Riverview neighborhood bordering the site complained that they were not aware of the studio project, Algiers leaders applauded the endeavor, saying it would not only add to the area's tourism business but also create jobs.
"It's a clean business and it's a quiet business and it's something that should produce of a lot of jobs," said state Rep. Jeff Arnold, D-Algiers, predicting that hundreds of jobs could be spawned by the studio.
"If we can get half of those people to live in Algiers, that'd be great," he said.
In addition, officials said, area colleges are considering adding film and television production to their curriculums to train students for jobs at the studio.
"This is a great step for economic development," said Kathy Lynn Honaker, executive director for the Algiers Economic Development Foundation. "I think we'll keep building on this and more will come."
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